The issue is that we use a third party for indexing and search results. The third party is now forcing the use of https instead of the standard http, which means they now only support the secure and encrypted version of the protocol. That sounds great in theory but the problem is that our forum software in its current form doesn't support the use of https for communicating with the search server. That means the search function is completely broken, so I had to temporarily disable it yesterday afternoon.

I contacted the forum software makers to see if they could provide a patch or fix for this, and they said they have no intention of doing that. Their only solution is to upgrade to a completely overhauled version of the entire forum software package that they just recently released. That version is so radically different that it would be like me starting the entire site over from scratch from a look and feel perspective. The upside is that it does support the https protocol for communicating with the search server. The downside is that there could be significant site downtime with an upgrade like that.

The issue is that we use a third party for indexing and search results. The third party is now forcing the use of https instead of the standard http, which means they now only support the secure and encrypted version of the protocol. That sounds great in theory but the problem is that our forum software in its current form doesn't support the use of https for communicating with the search server. That means the search function is completely broken, so I had to temporarily disable it yesterday afternoon.

I contacted the forum software makers to see if they could provide a patch or fix for this, and they said they have no intention of doing that. Their only solution is to upgrade to a completely overhauled version of the entire forum software package that they just recently released. That version is so radically different that it would be like me starting the entire site over from scratch from a look and feel perspective. The upside is that it does support the https protocol for communicating with the search server. The downside is that there could be significant site downtime with an upgrade like that.

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

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I know very little about this stuff... but don't some websites use Google for internal search? You see a "search powered by Google" button and I think its specific to that website, ie it doesn't search outside. I could be wrong... probably am. You'd already know that I'm sure.

I know very little about this stuff... but don't some websites use Google for internal search? You see a "search powered by Google" button and I think its specific to that website, ie it doesn't search outside. I could be wrong... probably am. You'd already know that I'm sure.

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anybody can do a google search and limit results to a particular website. there are other search engines that may give better results than google.

The issue is that we use a third party for indexing and search results. The third party is now forcing the use of https instead of the standard http, which means they now only support the secure and encrypted version of the protocol. That sounds great in theory but the problem is that our forum software in its current form doesn't support the use of https for communicating with the search server. That means the search function is completely broken, so I had to temporarily disable it yesterday afternoon.

I contacted the forum software makers to see if they could provide a patch or fix for this, and they said they have no intention of doing that. Their only solution is to upgrade to a completely overhauled version of the entire forum software package that they just recently released. That version is so radically different that it would be like me starting the entire site over from scratch from a look and feel perspective. The upside is that it does support the https protocol for communicating with the search server. The downside is that there could be significant site downtime with an upgrade like that.

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

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can you find another 3rd party to handle indexing and search result? I am sure you were already looking,